


for gold and rust, for diamonds and dust

by sharkfights (feartown)



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: ALL MY FRENCH IS PROBABLY WRONG I'M REALLY SORRY, F/F, i just want the big gay apartment: the sitcom tbh, spoilers for 2x05 and everything before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:27:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1648610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feartown/pseuds/sharkfights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delphine knows, beyond a doubt, that she was not born to be a spy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for gold and rust, for diamonds and dust

**Author's Note:**

> Yo yo yo Orphan Black fandom I tried to sneak in here super stealthy and pretend I had totally normal and cool Delphine feelings but.... I definitely only have really weird and intense Delphine feelings so this... is a fic... sort of about that. 
> 
> I desperately wanted this to be up before 2x05 aired bc I have real anxiety about fic diverging from canon after the canon has... become canon (does that make sense???? I don't know????) so there might be some funky sentences floating around in here still. WHO KNOWS, AS USUAL I AM NOT EVEN MEANT TO BE WRITING FANFICTION
> 
> Oh and I know the bathroom in the apartment is nothing like it is in the fic but i patently refuse to believe Felix would stand for exclusively using a freestanding bath with a handheld shower hose/head attached to it, THAT IS THE LEAST BELIEVABLE THING I'VE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE THE END

* * *

 

 

There are Greek tragedies, there is Shakespeare and Ulysses, and then there is the true catastrophe of Delphine Cormier.

 

 

 

Delphine knows, beyond a doubt, that she was not born to be a spy. With careful planning, she can lie, obfuscate, sell the story, but it doesn’t come naturally under pressure. She was not born to skulk in the grey and black, still shows her cards too easily to be a careful emissary lost in the dark.

But then: infiltrate. Deceive. Dig. Those were her orders, doctored up enough to give off a professional sheen. Put simply, 324B21 had answers critical to the continuation of the experiment. Aldous Leekie had looked at her and asked if she was capable, asked if she wanted to be _pivotal_ and _important_. _So Delphine, how would it feel to be a_ pioneer?

Delphine, naïve, had said of course. Delphine, stupid, had risen out of Leekie’s bed and felt like a queen.

 

 

It took too long for her to figure out she was little more than a pawn.

 

 

At one time, it felt like Aldous held all the secrets of the universe in the palm of his hand. Delphine had been entranced by him, seduced by the promise of knowledge, the idea that she could be a part of ground-breaking, life-changing science.

Now she looks at him and loathes the sight. The bend of his back makes her feel ill, the sweep of his hands as he talks makes her skin crawl. His promises were empty, light as air. She feels moronic for ever believing any of the things he told her, for convincing herself his request for information from Cosima meant more than it did. Aldous knew he could not seek it himself, so he sent in his loyal servant to retrieve it for him, and that reminder continues to leave a sour taste in the back of her mouth.

Delphine Cormier has never liked feeling used.

 

 

 

Across the lab, she watches Cosima in her chair, that heavy, ugly blanket draped across her knees as she taps her chin with a finger. In front of her, test results and research and genetic sequences glare out from the computer screen. Cosima refuses to rest, feels like with every breath she is decaying from the inside out, and it makes Delphine feel acutely that there is nothing she can do. That there is nothing any of them, even with all the technology in the world, can do to save her.

 _The brave new world_. It really does seem to be what Delphine has stepped into now - this game of chess with the DYAD and Cosima and Delphine stuck squarely in the middle. She didn't think she would end up here. She remembers the innocence of sitting in the back of Leekie’s car, her concerns so small in comparison to the lumbering giants they have grown into now.

She’d said _she made a pass at me, Aldous_ , as though it was funny and quaint, something she brushed off immediately afterward. Like Cosima’s lips on hers meant nothing more than that simple physicality. Like she hadn’t kissed back, if only for a moment.

Hilarious, that she tried so hard to convince Leekie she had no feelings for Cosima and now she must desperately prove that she has enough.

Cosima sees her watching and cracks a smile, spins a little in her chair. She has tried to stay herself against the constant reminders of Jennifer and Katja, and the wounded animal that Beth became before she took her life. She has tried to create a stopper for the hole in her leaking ship. Delphine is the only one who sees the fissure grow.

She stands, shakes the cramp out of her knee and the spaces between her knuckles, and walks over to Cosima.

“It’s late, Cosima.”

“I know,” she replies, tilting her head back to look at Delphine upside-down. “Have I gone totally cross-eyed?”

Delphine grins, and curves a hand around Cosima’s chin so she can lean down and place a kiss on her mouth. “You will if you stay here much longer. Come.”

 

 

They’ve stayed at Felix’s apartment with his blessing, after a rushed phone call and the swing of his coat out the door. Cosima doesn’t want a place furnished and paid for by DYAD, and Delphine understands – there are too many opportunities for hidden cameras, for more secrets and well-dressed lies. At least Felix’s place feels _safe_ , for all its garishness and rust. Delphine knows there are few places now that Cosima can feel that way.

Delphine throws her keys in the direction of the counter when they get inside, slumping down in an armchair and draping her arms over her face. She listens to Cosima boiling the kettle, rummaging in the fridge – noises that are so gently domestic she feels a strange well of emotion somewhere in her chest.

“What are you doing?” Cosima asks, suddenly in front of her, and Delphine wonders if she accidentally dozed off.

“Just… resting.”

“Ok, well, you drank all the wine so I’m making tea.”

Delphine scowls, “I did _not_.”

Cosima holds her hands up in surrender. “I’m just saying, the last bottle is empty, and the wine glass in the sink has your lipstick on it, it’s a totally logical deduction.” She points a finger gun in Delphine’s direction. “Boom, science.”

Kicking half-heartedly at Cosima’s legs, Delphine finds one of her hands and pulls Cosima forward, helps her straddle her lap. Cosima smiles down at her and she feels enveloped in sleepy warmth; the weight of the scientist on her legs stirring that deep liquid feeling in her chest again.

The ghosts of what she’s done dwell beneath her skin, and she wonders if Cosima sees them when she looks at her. It hurts somewhere vital, knowing that this sweet, brave Viking of a girl would look past all of Delphine’s deception and let her back in so completely.

Cosima leans down to find Delphine’s lips with her own, draws out a quiet, lingering kiss from them. Delphine sighs, anchors them together with her hands on Cosima’s face. There is nothing she has ever wanted more in the world than to kiss Cosima, to feel her skin under her fingers and the pulse of her heart against her ribs. There is nothing more real to her than that.

Soon they are hidden under Cosima’s arms tangled around her head, Cosima’s breath hot over her eyelids, her nose resting against Delphine’s brow. There is a world outside of them somewhere, but in here, this cocoon of limbs and whimpers and the hard press of elbows into the bones of her shoulders, Delphine doesn’t care. It could burn down around them; the earth could be swallowed by a roar, but with Cosima wet and clenching around her fingers it wouldn’t matter. This is where she wants to shelter from the war.

Cosima surges around her hand, her hips rolling and driving Delphine’s knuckles hard into her own thigh, and it’s hard to remember a time when she didn’t know how to do this, when the idea of being with a woman was so foreign to her. When Delphine finally pitched forward in the murky light of her apartment Cosima was cautious, let Delphine take the lead even though Delphine was far too clumsy and earnest with her hands, blindly trying to find skin and heat. She didn’t know how to be so much taller than Cosima, how to fit herself into the smaller slope of her body, fold into her curves. Cosima hadn’t minded, had simply let her feel it out, malleable and warm and lovely. In that moment, something warm coiled around her heart, fermented in her bones, settled somewhere she still can’t reach.

Cosima rides out her orgasm with her mouth hot over Delphine’s cheek, then pulls her up out of the chair before Delphine even realizes what’s happening.

 

In the bathroom she’s got one hand fisted into Cosima’s dreads, the other white-knuckled around the rickety arm of the shower head above them. Her thigh contracts against Cosima’s ear, her calf flush down Cosima’s back, shoulder blades biting into the shitty plastic behind her. Cosima could play her like a theremin, Delphine is sure, control the pitch and volume of her body without even touching her, like a humming instrument-creature of red flesh and shiny interlocking bone.

Delphine can feel the pressure building where Cosima’s fingers are curling, can hear her own gasps sliding off the walls, mingling with the hot steam and bouncing back, when all of sudden there’s wrenching noise, and Delphine is looking at the shower head in her outstretched hand as water sprays in every direction.

“Shit, Delphine!” Cosima smacks the tap handle to the off position and scrambles off her knees, swiping her arm across her mouth.

“ _Mon Dieu_ , Cosima, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know it was so instable.”

Cosima takes the shower head and surveys the damage. “ _Un_ stable. Felix is gonna kill us.”

Delphine slicks back the damp frizz on her head, teeth hard against her lip. She shouldn’t laugh, but she can feel one blooming in her chest, settling under her tongue, and it escapes in a hiccup Cosima is startled by.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, but the apology is useless when there’s a grin plastered across her face.

For a moment, it looks like Cosima might actually be serious, mad about a broken shower in an apartment that isn’t even hers. But then her mouth curls at the corners and she’s laughing too, they’re almost doubled over wheezing like they’re half-starved and half-alive.

Then Cosima coughs, a harsh chafe against Delphine’s fluttering giggle, and she stops cold. Crouching, she searches out Cosima’s face, looks for blood, looks for symptoms, looks for the science. Her hand palms the jutting lines of Cosima’s ribs, the skin stretching over them with every shuddering hack from her lungs.

When Cosima can breathe again, Delphine straightens and steps out of the shower to look for a towel.

“We should get dressed,” she says, trying her best to do as Cosima keeps asking – to brush it off and not make a big deal. “And maybe try to contact a plumber.”

But Cosima shakes her head, her eyes dark, makeup smudged. “We were in the middle of something.”

Delphine feels the throb between her legs return unwittingly at the timbre of Cosima’s voice, and she lets herself be pulled out of the bathroom and up the stairs to the bed, Cosima’s hand tight around her wrist.

When Cosima turns around her face is strangely hard, determined about something, and Delphine isn’t sure what it is until she says, “Kneel on the bed.” It’s unusual for her to be so demanding, and Cosima knows it, awkwardly clearing her throat and continuing her sentence with, “Um. Please.”

Delphine sheds the smallest hint of a smile as she obliges, sitting back on her heels to watch Cosima climb on the bed herself. Cosima faces her, tugs on her wrist again.

“Come here,” she says.

“Cosima…” Delphine starts, worried. This is not Cosima, and for an absurd second she wonders if it’s actually another clone before dismissing the thought as ridiculous. It _is_ Cosima, but it is a strange, alien version of her, prompted into being by the anger she feels at her sickness and her despair.

“Don’t, Delphine,” Cosima warns, gritting out the words like they’re stuck in her teeth.

Delphine relents; Cosima has found a foothold of control here, something she is sure of, a science she can understand. She follows Cosima’s lead, crawls up her body as Cosima lies back against the pillows. Delphine leans down, lends a kiss to Cosima’s mouth, but Cosima pushes her back with a light hand on her chin. The smaller woman presses on the backs of Delphine’s thighs, urging her further, and when Delphine gets the message she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip, a moan already catching in the back of her throat.

She wobbles forward and Cosima settles between her thighs, using her hands to pull Delphine down hard against her face. She lets out a sharp gasp, pitched high at the end, and closes her eyes as Cosima’s mouth opens against her.

Soon Delphine can't think, can't breathe, can only focus on the feeling of Cosima's tongue, Cosima's fingers digging into the skin of her thigh, her hip, scratching over her lower back. The headboard shakes under her hands, the polished wood slipping beneath her palms. Under her skin blazes a white heat, burning down through her arms, across the flush in her chest, through the tight cramps in her knees.

She glances down to see Cosima looking up at her, and Delphine blushes. She's still not used to this – Cosima makes her feel a litany of emotions she cannot put a name to, but mostly she makes Delphine afraid. Cosima puts her whole heart into everything, and Delphine has never known someone who has wanted to put their whole heart into her before. Delphine has met boys - loved boys, but Delphine has never felt herself consumed by them.

Cosima still has that stony look in her eyes; Cosima wants this more than anything, so Delphine swallows her self-conscious fear and rolls her hips, watches the motion flow down through her muscles, sinew, bone.

Cosima, still pressed to Delphine, opens her mouth and sucks, her eyes locked on the woman above her. Delphine can't stop the strangled whine that chokes itself out of her, her eyelids fluttering, and she runs a hand over Cosima's face, into her hair. She holds on, a mooring in the churning sea, and a shudder bucks up her spine as Cosima slides a finger inside her.

There's a smoky moon clinging to the sky, bright on her face and dirty through the apartment windows, and Delphine feels strangely wolfish in her skin: the sounds she can feel and hear and taste in her mouth but can't control, completely at the mercy of Cosima's tongue and fingers and the thrilling hum she can feel spreading through her body.

She comes in a hunched over cry, hair in her mouth, hands rough around Cosima's skull, and her hips a tight, erratic grind. She shifts back to let Cosima breathe, her whole body trembling and hot. Cosima sits up, wipes the back of her hand over her mouth, and says nothing, just watches her. Delphine leans forward, can feel the sticky wetness on her thighs, and kisses Cosima hard enough to bruise.

 

 

Afterwards, when she knows Cosima is asleep, she slips outside, sits on the hard metal stairs in the graffitied dark and cries.

She doesn’t hear Felix come up the stairs until he almost falls back down them from the fright he gets seeing her.

“Jesus shitting Christ, Delphine. What the hell are you doing?”

Delphine jolts, spine prickling, and wipes her eyes with hurried fingers. “Felix, oh, I’m… I didn’t want to wake Cosima.” She sniffs, willing herself to be normal. _Je vais bien_.

Felix drops his bags like a handful of sighs, and drags himself to the top step to slump down next to Delphine. His knee jostles hers and she wants to cry again already. There aren’t a large number of people in the world who show Delphine small kindnesses without agenda; that Felix – who has no obligation to her beyond the broad scope of _this_ – has sat here to offer something means more than she can possibly tell him.

“Presumably this is about Cosima, then. Spill it.”

She doesn’t know why she tells him, but she feels the confession billow out like smoke and wrap around the air, the silence deafening in its wake. “Cosima’s sick, Felix.”

He knows what it means: sick like the German, sick like they might not find a cure.

“How long?” he asks, gravel in his tone.

Delphine shrugs, because she’s not sure she knows anymore. “Her symptoms are at a similar stage to Katja Obinger’s, but for how much longer I do not know. She has months, perhaps a year, if we cannot find a treatment.” She wants to tell him everything; wants to let out the knotted little demons that have threaded their way around her heart and caught at the bottom of her throat, the ones that say _you cannot win this_. She wants someone to know that she is really failing, spectacularly failing, at keeping it all together.

“And no one knows about this?”

“No, and you cannot tell anyone. Not even Cosima, you can’t tell her that you know. She would hate me. Again.”

Because yes, even if she has let her back in there is a part of Cosima that has hated Delphine, and even if it is small, hidden in a hard to reach place – it remains. She doesn’t want to give Cosima reason to search it out.

Felix, tired, sighs with a weight already perched on his shoulders, the talons digging in. He nods. “Jesus _Christ_.”

Delphine realizes something must be wrong; a midnight return without his sister spells out some kind of disaster, and Felix seems… unsettled.

“Are you okay?” she asks, not sure where the lines are in this relationship contained entirely by a set of stairs, the brush of shoulders in the gloom.

“Not really. Probably not for a while.”

“Is… Sarah, is she okay?”

Felix lets out a derisive little _ha_ , shakes his head. “Who knows. I don’t think even Sarah knows, she’d much prefer to stay in happy family fantasy land than think for a second about whether anything makes sense.”

Delphine thinks she understands – Sarah needs Felix in the dark, when things are wrong, but he loses priority when things are in her favour. She thinks of Aldous, and grits her teeth. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m not thinking about it. All I really want is a few hours to sleep. And a shower, I smell far too… wholesome.”

She freezes. “Oh… no. That… is perhaps going to be a problem.”

 

 

In the morning, Felix fixes the shower – apparently it’s not the first time it’s happened – and Delphine helps, still feeling a little mortified. Cosima throws her a wink from the doorway, blowing on a cup of coffee as she passes by.

Felix rolls his eyes. “Listen,” he says quietly, wiping his hands on a towel, “Given the circumstances I’m not gonna kick you out on the street, but we’ve _got_ to find a way to cohabitate without driving each other insane. And I think the first move in that regard is getting another _bed_.”

“ _Merci_ , Felix, of course.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” he replies, waving a hand at her, “It’s not for your benefit, it’s for mine. That thing is just getting unsanitary.”

Delphine wants to laugh, knows she should try as hard as Felix does to keep up the facade, but her resolve is starting to atrophy before her eyes.

He searches her face before awkwardly squeezing her arm. “It’s gonna be okay, Delphine.”

She nods. Wants to believe.

 

 

 

Felix’s presence helps. He gives them a break from the spiralling pull of the DYAD, the headache it creates, and reminds Delphine that there is a light somewhere in the dark. He may not have any words of advice for her, may not be able to fix this mess, but at least he is there.

Delphine doesn’t like that she is keeping things from Cosima again, but she also knows without a confidant, without someone to expel her fears to, she will drown under the weight of them.

 

 

 

Not long after their cocoon of two becomes three, after Felix procures a bed and tries his best to seclude himself among his paintings, Cosima shifts next to her in warm tosses and jerks, apparently uncomfortable in their own bed. Delphine slides a hand over, finds the hot plane of her belly where her t-shirt has rucked up.

"Are you okay?" she asks just above a whisper, not wanting to disturb Felix. "Do you want me to open a window?"

Cosima doesn't laugh out loud, but Delphine can feel it under her hand - a fed up, halting sigh disguised as humour. "No. I'm not overheating, Delphine."

Her body bends and Delphine's hand is slipping up over her hip, Cosima's fingers finding her wrist and moving it so she’s palming the curve of Cosima’s breast under her shirt. Her skin feels damp, almost feverish, burning and clammy with frustration.

"Getting off in the lab bathroom is really starting to like, not cut it anymore."

"Felix _is_ letting us stay here rent-free, Cosima."

Cosima lets out a little groan – she doesn't care, doesn't want to have to feel grateful. As she gets sicker Cosima wants more, Delphine knows the longer she feels this disease coating her insides the more she wants to pull at Delphine’s clothes, sink into her flesh, take over her body and make herself feel whole again. And Delphine would let her, if it were possible; Delphine would build her a new body of steel and blood and bone if the science allowed. It’s a bitter thought, that science is what has brought Cosima into the world, and science is the one that wants to take her from it too.

Delphine sighs. She may not be able to bend the will of science for Cosima, but she can give her what she needs here in this bed. She traces her thumb over Cosima's nipple, feels it harden and bites her lip. She never gets tired of how it feels to be the one that makes Cosima’s body thrum, that she is the one to coax the roll of her hips and the sharp hitches of breath in her chest. She leans in, finds Cosima's mouth and sucks her lip gently between her own, Cosima folding toward her and gripping Delphine's hip with her fingers. She is tactile and silent, her approval voiced in the press of her hands, the hot quirk of her smile against Delphine’s skin.

But where Cosima is quiet, adept at keeping things hidden, Delphine is prone to noise – happy, unguarded notes of pleasure when Cosima finds the right way to pluck her strings.

She lets out a low moan as Cosima’s hand travels down past her navel, forgetting her own at Cosima’s ribs.

"Shh," Cosima says against her neck, "Don't wake him up."

Delphine just smiles, acts like she's heeding the warning.

She takes Cosima's face in her hands, kisses her to make her groan - all licking tongue and the white bite of teeth, and she feels a delicious shudder run right through Cosima's body where it is pressed flush against her.

"Del _phine_ ," she murmurs, vehement but amused.

"Sorry, ma cherie."

"You're not."

"No, I am not."

Cosima looks at her for a moment, her expression hard to read in the murky dark. Her eyes go deep, the irises black as infinite space, and then her hand comes up and covers Delphine's mouth.

“Be _quiet_.”

Delphine grins against her palm, and finds one of Cosima's fingers with her lips. Cosima's eyes close against the lave of her tongue as she pulls the finger into her mouth, and Delphine can feel her hips grind hard into her thigh.

Delphine lets go of her finger, drags Cosima's face so her ear is flush against Delphine’s mouth.

"What if I don’t want to?”

She finds the band of Cosima’s underwear, slips her fingers beneath it. Opens her mouth wide and damp against Cosima’s ear.

“ _Je veux te faire hurl _é__ ,” she says, as husky as she can make it, and Cosima bucks against her hand. She does want to make Cosima scream; wants the world to know that with Delphine's fingers inside her she feels wild and alive and _well_.

“Screaming is not…” her voice struggles against the movement of Delphine’s hand, “Screaming is not advised at this juncture, _Dr Cormier_.”

Delphine laughs softly. “Do you want me to stop?”

She already knows the answer; her fingers are slippery with it, Cosima’s skin is hot against her own, her breaths ragged whimpers against the column of her throat.

Her wrist burns, an ache travelling up through the fine web of bones, but she doesn’t stop until Cosima is panting, _keening_ against her collarbone as her hips fall out of rhythm and she falls apart.

The silence that follows is punctuated only by Cosima’s gulps for air.

Until: “If you’re quite bloody finished,” Felix’s voice says from the shadows, and Delphine yelps at the sound, “Some of us would like to go back to sleep.”

 

 

 

 

 

She knows it’s bad news when Rachel calls her into her office.

The woman turns when Delphine knocks, something sinister about the expression on her face. Delphine still feels uncomfortable around Rachel, sees glimpses of Cosima but can’t catch them, as though she’s looking through the shards of a mirror. She is ice, though, where Cosima is fire, and Delphine knows Rachel is not a chameleon she will ever be fooled by because of it.

Rachel stares her down, her mouth almost smiling above the haughty line of her jaw. “Dr Cormier.”

Her blood runs cold.

 

 

 

_The tests will stop. Until Sarah comes to heel, Cosima will suffer._

 

 

 

She has been given Cosima's death sentence in an emotionless threat.

Delphine doesn't know how to tell her. She walks through the halls of the DYAD and listens to the click of her heels echo against the walls. Cosima is right, this place is a prison. She has no power here; Cosima has no agency, no say over her body. She may not have signed a contract, but the DYAD can still do what they like with her. And what is Delphine? A puppet who tried to break the strings that tied her, but thoughtlessly let them be repaired.

She feels sick, feels like she's stuck in free-fall with no idea how to stop the ground from coming up to meet her. She seems, despairingly, to be stuck in a maze of her own making.

 

 

 

She pulls back the door of the apartment, shuts it behind her, and she thinks she can keep it together until she sees Cosima's face. She sees Cosima's face, hopeful and beautiful, and is suddenly shaking her head, her eyes blurring with tears, cradling Cosima's cheeks with her hands.

"I'm so sorry."

Cosima doesn't understand beyond _this is bad news_ , so she just holds tightly to Delphine's elbows as she says _I'm sorry_ against her mouth, _I'm sorry_ into her neck, tries to tattoo the words across her chest and make them mean something.

She ends up kneeling on the floor, her ear pressed to Cosima’s navel, Cosima’s hands carding through her hair.

“Delphine, what’s happening?”

She sounds hoarse, and Delphine’s heart splits even further in two.

“They have stopped the tests,” she says, choking the words out, “ _Rachel_ has stopped the tests, until Sarah does what she wants. I’m so sorry, Cosima.”

She wishes Cosima would get angry; even if she directed it straight at Delphine she still wishes Cosima would get angry. She has every right to feel violated, these people who promised to keep her safe aren’t playing by the rules, but she doesn’t. Cosima just deflates, hands falling to her sides.

“So they’re tying a noose around my neck.”

“We are not even allowed at the lab. They put a restriction on our swipe cards.”

Cosima sighs. “Why not just put me in a cage and be done with it?” she asks, pulling away from Delphine and lying back down on the couch.

“I’m so sorry, this is my fault.”

Cosima doesn’t argue, but she doesn’t fight Delphine when she tucks herself into the space beside her on the couch, twines their fingers together in bends of bone. Everywhere they touch is warm and feels like home. _I love you_ , she thinks, but doesn’t want to say it because she doesn’t want Cosima to think it’s a platitude. Or worse, a lie. Delphine has tried and failed before to convince Cosima of how she feels, and now is not the time to try again.

So she stays silent, just listens to the in and out of Cosima’s breath and lets it pull her into sleep. She dreams of gunshots and mountains, long stretches of road and a little girl's name printed in well-worn notebook.

 

 

 

When she wakes, Delphine knows what she has to do.

 

 

 

In the misty drizzle outside his apartment, Felix watches Delphine pack her bags into her car. She can feel his apprehension.

"You cannot stop me, Felix."

"I didn’t say I could."

She shuts the trunk, watches him for a moment. "You have the address?"

He hands over a slip of paper, a location scrawled there in heavy black ink. She kisses his cheek in a fit of affection for this boy who has no reason to be loyal to her, who didn't ask for the burdens she has given him. Felix tries to roll his eyes, but can't quite get it up to be insincere.

"Please don't get yourself killed," he says, and finds her hand with his. "I can't deal with anymore death, it’s bad for my complexion."

Delphine smiles, squeezes his fingers. "I will return, I promise."

 

 

 

 

The DYAD’s shining, antiseptic interior beckons her inside, wants to test her will, question her new resolve. She steadies her footsteps, can already taste the lies forming when she sees the security guard who will deliver her to Rachel.

This is what they wanted, here is the spy they wished for; wanted to build and shape and control.

Delphine smiles, fabricates sweetly, feeds the guard falsehoods. She wonders briefly if she could bring herself to use the pocket knife she slipped into her boot in case things went wrong. She wonders if she could survive being hunted, if she could become an animal like Sarah Manning. Her heart slams against her chest as she gets lead down the familiar corridors, is swept through access points and brought to Rachel’s door.

Rachel stands at the window and doesn’t seem surprised to see her.

“What do you want, Dr Cormier?”

Delphine sucks in a steadying breath. She wants to go down the rabbit hole. She wants walk to the ends of the earth and find the Cosima she has lost to a rasping cough and the red spatter of blood; return the bright, blunt spirit she met only a few months ago.

“I will bring you Sarah.”

Rachel turns, the arch of her brow apparent even across the room. Delphine tries not to feel x-rayed under her gaze, tries to look self-assured. She can do this if it secures Cosima to the world long enough to find a cure. She can be this shadowed girl.

Inexplicably amused, Rachel gives her the slightest nod.

“Fine.”

 

 

Outside, Delphine pulls up her hood, swallows the wind and rain and smoke of the city, and steps out into the dark.

 

 

Delphine Cormier was not born to be a spy, but she is learning.


End file.
